February Blog-o'-the-Month: OpenSimulator!

Wow, voters went all technical on us this month as Planet OpenSim, OpenSimulator edged out its competitors to become the February 2010 Blog-o'-the-Month at the ISTE Island Bloggers Hut! The RSS feed for this blog will be available at the Bloggers Hut for visitors who wish to learn more about this global collaboration of virtual environments programmers with a bent toward education.

This blog is a great source of documentation and resources that follow the ongoing development of OpenSimulator and its moments of jubilation as well as its ongoing challenges. You could do worse than to add it to your own RSS feeder, but meanwhile if you want to chat with a friend in Second Life whilst perusing its valuable contents, visit the Bloggers Hut in Second Life!

Also while you're there, check out the nominees for Blog-o'-the-Month in March. They run the gamut from the official corporate to the personal journal and here they are, along with the color you should click at the polling station to vote for your fave:

Red

Official Second Life Blog(s)

Linden Lab officially blogs, and these are also pushed out in an email update if you choose that option. Visit the "from the virtual horse's mouth" blogs at

https://blogs.secondlife.com/

Green

Suffern Middle School in Second Life

Our own Maggie Marat is the go-to-educator for the Teen Grid. Her Teen Grid adventures, challenges, and triumphs can be followed at

http://ramapoislands.edublogs.org/

Yellow

SLED blog

A vibrant Second Life community collaborates, self-promotes, and learns at the Second Life Education Blog. Visit it at

http://www.sl-educationblog.org/

Blue

Arwenna Stardust's Second Life Blog

On the personal/professional end of the spectrum, Dr. Clare Atkins posts thoughtful musings at her own blog, working from her New Zealand home. Should March's Blog-o-the-month be

http://arwennastardust.wordpress.com/

The winner and the nominees may copy these buttons for their own websites, and feel free to link back to O!VL! at will! Congratulations, one and all!

Ohio Educational Technology Conference 2010

Dear friends and colleagues,

The Ohio Educational Technology Conference 2010 to be streamed into Second Life! The conference takes place from February 1 - 3, 2010, starting at 5AM SLT to 1:30PM on most days.

Main Conference Website: http://www.etech.ohio.gov/conference/
Second Life Conference Website: http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife2/?p=342
Conference Twitter: http://twitter.com/ohioetc
Conference Hashtag: #OETC2010

Main Venue: Ohio Learning Network Island Amphitheatre
Main Venue Island Name: OLN Island

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/OLN%20Island/197/146/31

Concurrent and Overflow Venue: University of Cincinnati Atlas Auditorium
Overflow Venue Island Name: University of Cincinnati

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Cincinnati/198/202/28

Sincerely,

- Chris/Fleep
Chris M. Collins (SL: Fleep Tuque)

UC Second Life: http://homepages.uc.edu/secondlife
OLN Second Life: http://www.oln.org/emerging_technologies/emtech.php

Prezi New Features! Why Second Life?

Hey all,

I received an email announcement just today from the fine folks at http://prezi.com detailing a major overhaul of the interface. I had noodled with it a good while back while prepping for a presentation to my then employer, the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach. I ended up not using the Prezi version because it wasn't handling my urls very well. Some were clickable, some not, just inconsistent. It was probably something I was doing wrong, but now when I go open it in the new, improved Prezi, VOILA! it seems to work merrily.

The presentation, by the way (reverted back to Powerpoint and still available at slideshare.com), seemed well received but resulted in no adoption of Second Life for the work the Center does. I wonder if I'd used the version below if they'd have listened more receptively. I'll never know, but you can see the presentation here:

In Memoriam, Scott Swanson/Kyle Thorn, 1973-2010

Scott and I were friends. We had drifted apart over the past year or two, but I always valued his incisive wit and unerring skepticism. Scott was the first person I met in Second Life after I turned in my game-playing avatar for my educator avatar, and it was a pivotal point in my relationships in virtual worlds. His spirit lives on in the innovative spirit of anyone who refuses to accept that dangerous mind-set, "That's the way we've always done it."

I know Scott's in whatever heaven he envisioned for himself, asking hard questions of whomever thinks he's, or she's, in charge.

Carry on, good soul, I left ya a lava lamp. May it burn brightly for you.

Scott Merrick,

January 13, 2010

Better Late than Never! Blog-o'-the-Month for January is Dusan Writer's Metaverse!

Hey, ya'll!!!

Please enjoy the RSS feed of January's 's Blog-o'-the-Month, Doug Thompson's Dusan Writer's Metaverse! . It's a durn good thing January's such a long month, since my rl has been so busy I completely failed to update the Hut until this morning. My apologies, Doug!

Whilst you're at the Bloggers Hut (newly signaged by ISTE in a very gentle island update--they lost the possessive apostrophe both here and on the Podcasters Place, which I consider an improvement--I never could remember how I originally set that up anyway!), click a color on the polling object to vote for February's featured blog. The winning blog will of course appear in

the RSS feed here at the Blogger's Hut for the entire month!

All four of the February nominees, all having to do with OpenSimulator development and content creation, are wonderful in their own very different ways. You could do worse than to regularly visit each of them!

Red

ReactionGrid--AllBlogsZone

ReactionGrid is an up and coming OpenSimulator-based platform for creativity. Each of its three co-owners host a blog, and they are all aggregated here for your convenience. Come see the growing documentary of this virtual world's progress at

http://www.reactiongrid.com/Default/BlogZone/AllBlogPosts.aspx

Green

Planet OpenSim

Very technical, yet somehow readable even to us "end-user" types, Planet OpenSim is a font of information for educators interested in pursuing development off-SL.

http://planet.opensim.us/

Yellow

Rezzable "Private Grid"

Rezzable is a well-known name in Second Life development (can you say, "The Greenies' Home?

), but did you know that they are also working in ReactionGrid? They are...

http://rezzable.com/taxonomy/term/710/0

Blue

Fashion Research Institute's Shengri La

Fashion? Avatar fashion design? What's that got to do with education? Keep up with this blog to see.

http://shenlei.com/

Previously Featured Blogs-o'-the-Month:

CoolCatTeacher--Vicki Davis

EdTechJen--Jennifer Roland

Clive on Learning--Clive Shepherd

Technology and Learning--Lee Kraus

PESD Island--Noreen Strehlow

In a Strange Land--Iggy O et al

Second Life in New Zealand--John Waugh, Terry Neal, et al

Hey Jude!--Judy O'Connell

Learning Games--Daniel Livingstone

Learning Visions--Cammy Bean

Dr. Z Reflects--Leigh Zeitz

Hendron's Digest--John Hendron

Phasing Grace--Grace McDunnough

From Mr. A to Mr. Z--Jeff Agamenoni

Around the Corner--McGuhlin.net

Fleep's Deep Thoughts--Fleep Tuque/Chris Collins

NMC Campus--New Media Consortium

PHSPrincipal Blog--Dave Meister

Teaching Math Technology Blog--Maria Anderson

2CentsWorth--David Warlick

The Story of My Second Life--Kevin Jarrett

Oh! Second Life (now Oh! Virtual Learning) -Scott Merrick :)

Nominees and winners, grab a new "Blog-o'-the-Month" badge for your blog!

Federal Trade Commission releases "Virtual Worlds and Kids..."

Alerted once again by my fine PLN on Twitter, I took the time to read this extensive report and I believe it is so worth sharing that I am herein expending even more attention on a brief review. I hope you will share your thoughts with me either here or at the discussion thread I've started on the SIGVE wiki. The report is entitled "Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping the Risks."

One might think that the Federal Trade Commission would have other more pressing topics to pursue than underage exposure to adult materials in virtual worlds, but considering some of the committee's findings I have to commend that body for its efforts here. I think the report is not only accurate assessment of the current state of the field but also balanced and objective beyond reproach. I'm sure we can look forward to further explorations by government agencies considering that:

*"The number of youth participants in online virtual worlds is projected to grow to over 15 million by 9. 2013, with the most significant growth among the pre-teen (ages 3-11) segment of users. See Virtual Worlds News, Teen, Pre-teen Migration to Virtual Worlds On the Rise, supra note 8."

and

*"Virtual worlds consultancy kZero estimates that the number of registered accounts in the virtual 8. worlds sector totaled 579 million globally in the second quarter of 2009. This figure represents an increase of 38.6% from the previous quarter when global registered accounts totaled 417 million."

This report, available online in a 92 page .pdf, is the result of a direct assignment from Congress:"The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (Public 1. Law 111-8, enacted March 11, 2009) directed the Federal Trade Commission to submit a report to the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations regarding “virtual reality web programs.” Specifically, the statement read: Concerns have been raised regarding reports of explicit content that can be easily accessed by minors on increasingly popular virtual reality web programs. The FTC is directed to issue a consumer alert to educate parents on the content that is available to children on virtual reality web programs. In addition, no later than nine months after enactment of this Act, the FTC shall submit a report to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations discussing the types of content on virtual reality sites and what steps, if any, these sites take to prevent minors from accessing content."

The report itself runs only 34 pages, but I advise the careful reader to take the time to explore the exhaustive endnotes as well. Anyone who has any interest at all in the educational uses of virtual worlds needs more than a passing acquaintance with the information in this document. I would go further: Any parent of a child with access to a computer connected to the internet needs to read this document.

The methodology of the investigation is itself a model for further researchers. An initial survey of virtual worlds yielded 187 possible targets, which were pared down to 30, mostly on the criterion of popularity, based on reported number of unique visits. "Because one of the worlds, Adventure Rock, could not be accessed by the Commission’s researchers, and two other worlds, Webkinz and MyePets, required the purchase of a plush toy for registration, the Commission excluded these worlds from its survey, resulting in a sample of 27 online virtual worlds." Researchers also communicated directly with the hosting companies of six of the worlds, gaining further insight into policies and procedures. Here's a list of all the worlds included in the sample:

9 Dragons1

9dragons.acclaim.com

AQ

www.aq.com

Bots1

bots.acclaim.com

Buildabearville

www.buildabearville.com

Dofus

www.dofus.com/en/

Gaia Online

www.gaiaonline.com/

Habbo

www.habbo.com

Handipoints

handipoints.com

IMVU

www.imvu.com

Kaneva

www.kaneva.com

Maid Marian

maidmarian.com

Meez

www.meez.com

Millsberry

www.millsberry.com

My Diva Doll1

www.mydivadoll.com

Neopets

www.neopets.com

Pixiehollow

pixiehollow.go.com

Poptropica

www.poptropica.com

Red Light Center

www.redlightcenter.com

Runescape

www.runescape.com

Second Life

www.secondlife.com

Secret of the Solstice2

solstice.outspark.com

Stardoll

www.stardoll.com

There

www.there.com

Vivaty

www.vivaty.com

Wind Slayer2

windslayer.outspark.com

YoVille

www.yoville.com

Zwinktopia

www.zwinky.com

Directed to explore for sexually explicit content and violently explicit content for set amounts of time, utilizing any means possible, the researchers did so registered as adults, then registered as teens, and finally registered as children. They recorded their efforts using Camtasia software and in an extensive Access database form, then their findings were replicated by another researcher to ensure a "99.5% accuracy." Findings are reported in text accompanied by charts and tables, with screenshots of registration screens and more.

Again, this is not as much a review as it is an invitation for you to read and understand committee's findings for yourself. That said, I don't think it's a spoiler to share the report's introduction to its concluding recommendations to Congress and the industry:

As reported above, the Commission found very little explicit content on virtual worlds open to children under age 13. The Commission found a greater concentration of explicit content in worlds that permit teens to register, and where teens are likely to congregate. Although some of the teen- and adult-oriented online virtual worlds in which the Commission observed explicit content have taken steps to restrict minors’ access to explicit content, their efforts have not fully succeeded. Virtual world operators can do more to limit youth exposure to explicit content. Given important First Amendment considerations, the Commission supports virtual world operators’ self-regulatory efforts to implement these recommendations.

The report goes on with recommendations that include establishing more effective age and content filtering mechanisms, creating better age-segregating structures, employing full-time inworld moderators with policing tools, and creating better parent and youth education. All good measures, all contributing to the value of this timely and informative report. My own recommendation? Read it!